Hi Jackie (& HBOO). The pre-surgical period is supposed to prepare you for your post-op life. But you shouldn't feel sad. You should feel excited & committed. If you don't, that's a very good sign your eating disorder is driving your bus. DON'T LET IT.
Jackie, why would you go to the hospital for nausea? For nausea you see your surgeon or your primary doctor, or both. it's not an issue that would ever require hospitalization, especially if you're post-op.
what would be an issue is what you're eating. Like Brenda said, you should have a list of foods and some concept of a menu you follow after surgery. It is ESSENTIAL to follow these guidelines so you don't damage your new stomach & digestive system.
you should not have diarrhea or vomiting following the surgery, except in the first few days, if that. you might also experience constipation. but you MUST drink your water. Forget the protein shakes. Have broth and jell-o, hot cereal made with Magic Milk, runny mashed potatoes, yogurt and cream soups, also made with MM. you want to eat comfort foods, but they need to be liquid in the first week or so, then thick liquids until you reach the pureed-food stage.
If you really didn't want to have the surgery but did it for health reasons, you may feel unhappy. Most people are overjoyed and can't wait to lose 100 or 200 or more pounds, and any nausea or discomfort they feel passes quickly away. HBOO, we've talked about your gas & cramping, right? How's that going?
A typical patient having RYGB would be in the hospital up to 3 days, then be sent home with pain meds and a written diet. She would probably feel a little weak and nauseated, and maybe have no appetite, but would feel better once she got some broth into her, or some cream soup or hot cereal. as long as what your eating can be liquified, you can eat it, with the exception of high-fat or high-sugar items, which you will live to regret if you consume them.
within 2 weeks there should be no nausea at all but there might be some new aversions to certain foods. she would be walking at least around the living room, or outside around the house, then around the block or on a trail of some kind for short distances, increasing the distances as tolerated. She'd be feeling something close to normal but there would be a sense of emptiness, perhaps, where the big stomach used to be. there may be pain at the incision sites as well, but it really shouldn't be severe.
Jackie, if anti-nausea meds didn't work but eating normal foods did, it sounds like your eating disorder is truly making you miserable. It's classic that the eating demon within wants to destroy everything you've got because you have some voice in your head, shaming you, or telling you to eat x or y or z because oooo they taste so goooood.... trying six different meds and finding none of them effective doesn't sound normal at all to me, but please don't hate me for telling you i think it's a psychological issue. this is NOT what your post-op body wants.
Again, i'm agreeing with Brenda that some headwork needs to happen here. especially if you have detractors or people who would love to see you fail, and an almost-human eating disorder that keep trying to pull you off the path to health, you should be in regular therapy AND you should be using meditation and affirmation techniques to strengthen your resolve.
i have an obsessive brain. for the longest time, i just lived miserably with it. then i learned about affirmations. turns out that even if the voice is really loud and persistent, there is a part of your brain that's STARVING for love and waiting those comforting words you learn to say in affirmations. When you do say them, that part of your thought process gets bigger and stronger and pushes the abusive eating bully out of your mind.
ALWAYS RULE OUT PHYSICAL CAUSES FIRST. If your pouch is fine and you're not dehydrated, and if you have treated your diarrhea and nausea as well as you can, work hard on your brain. cut out pictures of women in gyms and hiking trails, on bikes or in aerobics classes and just stare at them until their bodies make sense to you. You can have that body, too.
i don't even talk to anyone in my family anymore and believe me, that is no great loss. They're a f*cking drag and i never told them about my surgery, either. i just got skinnier and healthier and more accomplished at outdoor sports than any of them ever could, and the more i got better, the stupider they sounded. Don't get sucked in by the mean girls. just because you were born into a family doesn't mean you all have the right to tear each other down.
i'm kind of rambling and feel like i could talk about this so much better if we were sitting face to face. But the misery you're expressing is nowhere NEAR normal and you don't need a hospital stay to figure that out. get cleared by your docs and then start loving your body with all the pounds you've lost and imagining how you'll look in a year. sorry, i'm going to post a before/after picture here i've posted a million times, but believe me, i KNOW what you're going through and i know how to make it better.
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check out my albums, too.
https://www.americanbariatrics.org/members/dianeseattle.12861/#xfmgAlbums
turns out, thin was my natural state, normal for me, and that fat girl was just a phase. the scales don't just record weight, they balance out your life. it will happen to you if you let it.
